(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display and a thin film transistor array panel.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays. An LCD includes two panels provided with field-generating electrodes and a liquid crystal (LC) layer interposed therebetween. The LCD displays images by applying voltages to the field-generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the LC layer, which determines orientations of LC molecules in the LC layer to adjust polarization of incident light.
The LCD has a disadvantage of narrow viewing angle. Various techniques for enlarging the viewing angle are suggested and a technique utilizing a vertically aligned LC and providing cutouts or protrusions at the field-generating electrodes such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode is promising.
Since the cutouts and the protrusions reduce the aperture ratio, the size of the pixel electrodes is suggested to be maximized. However, the close distance between the pixel electrodes causes strong lateral electric fields between the pixel electrodes, which dishevels orientations of the LC molecules to yield textures and light leakage, thereby deteriorating display characteristic.
In the meantime, photo etching processes are performed to form various patterns on the panels of the LCD through light exposure.
When a backplane for LCDs is too large to use an exposure mask, the entire exposure is accomplished by repeating a divisional exposure called step-and-repeat process. One divisional exposure unit or area is called a shot. Since transition, rotation, distortion, and etc. are generated during light exposure, the shots are not aligned accurately. Accordingly, parasitic capacitances generated between wires and pixel electrodes differ depending on the shots, and this causes the bright difference between the shots, which is recognized at the pixels located at a boundary between the shots. Therefore, the stitch defect is generated on the screen of the LCD due to brightness discontinuity between the shots.